Go England! Rooney, you are a monster...He took down two Ecuador defenders while charging the ball...it was funny, to say the least.

In other news, I'm quite impressed with Breaking Benjamin's new single, "Diary of Jane." They are up to their 3rd CD, and it seems like they haven't strayed from their roots. And, they're from Pennsylvania, and come to Penn State a lot, so I'm a bit partial (even though I've never gotten the chance to see them in concert...every time they've performed, I've been busy or out of town. ;_;).

And THONG is back in full swing, if you missed it last time. Onward to the letters!

L E T T E R S

Randomness abounds!

Hiya Ouro!

You asked for any new games that I've been loving lately, but I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for that. Lack of funds + huge backlog = no new games, despite the sale at EBgames... But things are not hopeless!

After all, I've knocked a few games out of my backlog that I don't really like as much (or would slow me down way too much if I tried to finish them) and now I have a total of...nine! Pretty small compared to that backlog of 61 mentioned yesterday seem like, well, it's still a big undertaking for me!

But that's not all! Yes, thanks to the fact that the family PC (which was where my WoW is installed) has decided to take a logic hiatus and just die on us for no reason, I'll have more time to work on my backlog. (A three week holiday helps, too.) Now, if only I didn't have to clean my room, we'd be set, me, my laptop and the PS2.

So, since this is a QnA column, I guess I should make with a Q for you to A. Hmm, if there was any one game you wish had more publicity, but was pushed to the side because of some more popular game, what would it be? Why? Did it have an amazing music score, a cast of believable, funny and non-generic characters, or did it just kick butt for some other reason?

On the topic of game music, it doesn't really matter what the music is, so long as my ears don't bleed when it plays, I'm okay. But it didn't use to be that way, no, not at all...

Back in the days of Super Mario Brothers (I can't remember which one exactly), the castle levels scared the shizzle right out of me. The music, the firey poles that spun around, everything about them scared me! And Bowser!!!! Needless to say, I had to ask my sister to beat those levels for me, but the day I cleared on by myself...it made my 7-year-old self overjoyed. So overjoyed, in fact, that I forgot to save...oops. Yeah, it's pretty much my earliest gaming memory too, that music.

But, that's about all I can type about at the moment. *sigh* I think I'd better get working on shaving away at that backlog. Look out FFX!

Well, I don't have access to a PS2 for the next 6 weeks, so imagine how I feel ;_;

Does Xenogears count? I don't remember it having much publicity, but it still managed to do well. I certainly would have loved to see publicity for Katamari Damacy and its sequel...that would have been interesting to say the least. Disgaea would have been a good choice as well. All of those games are incredibly fun, but were overshadowed by either a) other releases or b) lack of people knowing about them anyway.

The music has to be good, yes. I just get irritated when I'm forced to listen to drivel (I'm looking at you, Grandia 3...that one town drove me NUTS) in what is otherwise an outstanding game. The same thing happened when "Otherworld" played in FFX. I thought it was a great tune, but the moment the lyrics came on, I wanted to destroy my speakers. For you other readers, don't give me that "But it fit!" crap. If I wanted to hear something that sounded like a guy vomiting, I'd...go listen to a guy vomit. Psh. ^^

SOCCER

Hi there Ouro,

in regards to how I amassed that many games and never
finished them it's easyI had a job, no
responsibilities so everytime I'd here about an old
game series on RPGamer I'd track it down on Ebay,
tried to make sure every crack in my favorite series
was filled in and any games which i heard about on
RPGamer that were upcoming I reserved, however do to
yon job and the fact earlier this year I had a love
life which I now sadly don't I amassed that much stuff
but haven't got arround to playing them all here's the
list
http://www.geocities.com/tenma_no_kage/Backlog2.doc So
uh yeah ^^;;

Anyway as for a question what are your thoughts on
party member pick ups, do you perfer them all close to
the beggining ala FFX, or all near the end ala SO3, or
spread out? I perfer spread out up until half way
through, nothing sucks as bad in my opinion as getting
some character two or three areas before the end with
sucky levwels, horrid equipment craptastic skills, the
way I see it if they take that long to join up they
should be able to kill the final boss just by blowing
their nose at it... to make up for how damn late they
came along

Bonus Question: Have you ever ran into a secret bonus
party member that was actually worth the insane hoops
you had to jump through to get them?

Arros Raikou

Josh

*cracks his knuckles*

Here, let me clean up some of that backlog for ya.

Magna Carta

Stella Deus

Lunar: Dragon Song

Thousand Arms

There ya go...down to 54!

Hmm...party member pickups, eh? Spread out is the way to go, as it provides some variety when you start getting bored with your current setup. Then, by the time you hit the end, you've figured out the perfect way to manage your party, and you can go save the world and whatnot. Though, if you look at Final Fantasy Tactics, you get Orlandu pretty late, and he can practically destroy an enemy party single-handedly. However, yes...you should have all of your characters at least by 2/3 of the game.

Secret bonus character...uh... *scratches head*...Well, Gogo was worth it, though I wouldn't call it 'insane hoops.' Um...nothing is really coming to mind. I can barely recall most of the characters from the Suikoden games, and you never really -needed- to get ANYONE in Chrono Cross. So...I dunno, sorry!

SOCCER!!

To the USA. If you think Australia is just a filler team answer me this!
Who's in the top 16 well who? So stick that in your pie hole.
To Ouro the pink. (And Matt the blue if he wants!)

I seem to have become quite the nightowl. First with F1 (The Canadian grand
priz starting at the early time of 2:30 AM, and all this soccer hooplah (AFL
is still the greatest footvall around!), blah its not if i have a day job or
anything!

Anyway my question/fanatic rave/song and dance today is about my much
beloved series of Harvest Moon! I first played this game on my humble and
siometimes mistreated (My first being engulfed in flames in the fire of '96,
not due to any of my fault) Super Nintendo. I think its still the only
Harvest Moon where; 1. I passed the game marrying all of the girls, 2.
passing the game, 3. You could have more then 1 child and 4. Was content
with what the game offered. And then I didn't here of the game again.
Mainly due to the scarsity of the 64 and PS2 versions. I found, surprisingly
in Target which is not known for having RPG's above Pokemon or Final
Fantasy, HM: Back to Nature for the insulting price of $20 Australian. With
expectations of nil I plugged it in and was surprised at the 3Dness of the
game, and the fact that it was in German (Okay the default language starts
on German instead of English, ha ha Bainick). But as I got into the game
small things disapointed me. Like the fact that people never had anything
new to talk about, or that you could only have one child. Or that certain
people (GREG) were just in the game for no apparent reason. What a waste of
space of digital information that could have been better used for something
else! But I preserved and heard about a gamecube game that would follow the
lifetime of the main character. Cool I thought ("He ddn't" Bain) maybe this
game would have a decent storyline and solve the problems of what the PS
game suffered from. I was wrong. Although the graphics were (Rightfully)
greatly improved and the system added an interesting edge into the game, the
characters still suffered from bland ("And translation Errors" Bain)
scripts, a truly obismal vegetable system, the fact that a cow had to have
had a baby to give milk (If I want'd realism I'd work on a real farm), you
still couldn't have multiple children and the shorter seasons with fewer
festivals made the game boring!

Now I have looked up on the next game and they have fixed a few of the
problems, but i'm worried that the script will still lack any kind of
storyline or plots, and I hope that in the future that Natsume will make a
much bigger Harvest Moon game then one that follows the small increase's
that they have introduced into all of there games so far!

Bain swears that the china cup fell over the edge!
Nick plays too much Monkey Island 4, or was that Donkey?
Bainick better pull himself together soon!

Josh

First off, your country wasn't even in the last World Cup, and we made it to the Quarterfinals. So talk to me if Australia gets there. On the other hand, good show against Japan. They didn't even know what hit 'em. Don't get me wrong, I love my country, but we have quite a ways to go to be considered a giant force in soccer.

Harvest moon was fun for me on SNES as well, and I never really ventured too far into any of the newer versions. I just grew away from the farm sims, basically. The SNES game was quite enjoyable, but it never really grabbed my attention long enough to complete it, much less try to marry everyone, etc.

The default was really German? Strange. However, I'm not sure what sort of storyline you are looking for...I mean, it's a farm sim. You farm, you make milk, you grow plants, and you try to get a wife/husband before you kick off. The story of life has never been so exciting! ^^

Sorry 'bout the Slow spell. You totally deserved it for the World Cup comment, though. :P Hehehehehe...

SOCCER!!!!!!

Dear Ouro

I just have a quick question about this. Is what they reported about all the Tales games true? RPGamer hasn't reported this, so that's why I'm wondering. It seems like Tales and PSP really mix, if the story is true. Hmm, Namco-Bandai. Am I the only one having trouble getting used to that name? For some reason, I became accustomed to saying "Square-Enix" practically RIGHT AWAY upon the merging announcement, yet somehow I have trouble remembering to say "Namco-Bandai" instead of just "Namco" or "Bandai," since they don't exist anymore. So am I the only one like this?

Alan

Josh

Well, they got that information from V-Jump, and they have the pics to prove it, so...I'm gonna go with yes. If this comes over to North America, it might finally cause me to get a PSP...hmmm...Tales on the go. Me likey.

Bandai-Namco or Namco-Bandai do sound weird. I'll probably still call it by one or the other. I still call S-E 'Square,' just out of force of habit.

SOCCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You want an honest answer about why not many RPGs are modern-based?

*pulls out Psychiatrist pad*

Vell, it seems dat more people associate fantasy vith historical eras,
particularly the Medieval era than vith the Modern era.

*puts the pad away*

While I don't have stats for regular RPGs, MMOGChart has a breakdown of MMOs
by genre in its Analysis and Conclusions section.

Fantasy: 92.6%
Sci-Fi: 4.7%
Combat Sim/FPS: 0.6%
Social/other: 2.1%

These genre names also show a distinct naming prejudice. In the western
world, fantasy in or near a modern setting tends to be called "Science
Fiction."

I could go on, but I think that I need to get back to work.

--
Powerlord

Josh

O_o Data galore! Are you sure you aren't Aethelred in disguise?

Well the name bias is pretty apparent, since they just accuse the setting of being a product of science rather than nature or manual labor. I know there are plenty of people that prefer Sci-Fi, I just don't know why they don't translate it to RPGs more often. As I said before, I'd still like to see more in present times rather than future or past. Just to see what happens.

Or, THONG for short. For now, the prizes will be limited to Guest-Hosting opportunities, since this is essentially an experiment. I'm positive that it will turn out well, though! Now, for the setup:

This is the game board. If you ever talk to CactuarJoe, make sure to thank him for the wonderful job he did! Thanks Joe!

If you want to join: Please send me your top 3 choices for characters for your game piece. A list of them that can be used can be found here. Please only choose from the "PARTY" or "NPC" links. Also make sure that the character has a left/right-facing sprite, and a front/back facing sprite. Thanks!

Everyone begins the game on START.

For every letter you write in, I will roll a 3-sided die (I'll use RPGamer's resident Random Number Generator, DiceyBot). That will determine how many spaces you move.

You may only get credit for one letter, per day - max 3 per weekend. Timestamps will be checked, and only letters sent during Friday - Monday before my column will be counted towards that weekend. Letters sent at other times during the week will not count until Saturday.

If you land on a Spell Tile, you MUST use the spell listed on the Tile. Spells and their effects are listed after the rules.

The Trivia Tile MUST be landed on before you may enter the FINISH Tile. Answering the trivia question correctly will automatically grant you entry into the FINISH Tile, and you will receive the prize.

If you reach the Trivia Tile, another reader who is participating in the game will ask you a question. However, the person who lands on the Tile decides WHICH reader asks the question, as well as WHICH RPG from which the question will be asked (e.g. "Wonderslime wants Bainick to ask him a question about Chrono Trigger").

If the person who provides the question has not played the game, they may use anything necessary to come up with a question. Failure to provide a question over 2 days of my column will result in the same effect as if the receiver answered the question right, and he/she will progress to the FINISH Tile.

The Prize for this initial board will be 5 Guest Hosting positions. Once those are completed, a new board will be created, probably with more prizes.

The effects will go as such. Movement->Spells Cast->Effects. Everyone will move at the same time, all spells will be cast at the same time, and all effects will happen at the same time. Attack spells will be cast at the beginning of the day after they were landed on.

Spell effects are as follows:

Bolt 1: Player chooses another player to push back 1 tile.

Bolt 2: Player chooses another player to push back 2 tiles.

Stop: Player must send in a letter to lose the 'Stop' status, at which point he may send in a letter the next day to resume rolling.

Haste: Player receives an extra roll which will make him/her advance 1-3 tiles.

Slow: Player receives an extra roll which will make him/her retreat 1-3 tiles.

Merton: Player chooses another player to push back 4 tiles, at the cost of Player moving back 2 tiles.

Roulette: I roll a 20-sided die. Any players standing on that numbered tile are pushed back 2 tiles.

C L O S I N G

IN CONCLUSION:

Not much activity on the THONG front. Ah well.

And now, during the week, I don't get to watch the World Cup because I'm either in class or at work. This sucks. ;_; I need my soccer!!!!